Tuesday, August 4, 2015

FDR at War part 2

So, it's 1941, and England does nothing but lose battles —
in Europe, the Pacific, the Middle East. Churchill won't give India a nod
toward independence. Small wonder then, that his Indian troops desert him, in
Singapore and elsewhere. So much for the precious Empire. Nor are even English
troops much committed to the defense of Singapore as they would be, say, to the
defense of London. Churchill has a hard time coming to terms with this.
Roosevelt sees it clearly.

Hitler has not yet been bloodied and seems invincible.

Then Pearl Harbor, and we are at war with Japan. Hitler
makes the enormous blunder of joining with Japan by declaring war on the United
States. Had he not done so, it's quite possible FDR could have not have
overcome American isolationism sufficiently to declare war on Germany.

The United States has a tiny army, about the size of
Romania’s (can you imagine?), but is ramping up fast. FDR tours the country and
witnesses our industry pumping out tanks, planes, ships at a rate far beyond
all the Axis powers put together.

But what to do with this burgeoning force of arms?

Many in FDR's general staff urge a cross-channel invasion of
France. Churchill knows that's folly. Hitler has 25 crack divisions waiting.
FDR knows this is not the time.

Others in FDR's staff want all attention, and all resources,
redirected from Europe and the Atlantic to the Pacific war against Japan.
Japan, having suffered a crushing reversal at Midway, is not the threat it was
but still on the move.

FDR refuses that option as well.

He will not abandon the war in the Pacific — his demand on
Japan remains as from Pearl Harbor on a demand for unconditional surrender —
but neither will he abandon the war in Europe.

His solution is a major landing in North Africa — not an
Allied landing, an exclusively American one.

Why not allied? Why no Brits? Among other reasons there is
that FDR has made a point of not warring on Vichy France, the hope being that
the French forces still intact in N. Africa will not oppose America as they
would have their old foe, England. And mostly, they don't.

FDR's main opposition comes from within: Marshall, Stimson
etc. approach mutiny in their dissent. But FDR knows how to get his way, how to
assert that at the end of the day (and as per the Constitution), he is after
all, commander-in-chief.

Stalin, for all that he'd love a major offensive on the
Western front, for which he accepts his allies may not be prepared, gives this
initiative — codenamed TORCH— his blessing, including his literal God Bless. FDR, hearing
Harriman's report about his meetings with Stalin, is impressed by how quickly
Stalin got the point, when his own chiefs of staff had such a hard time.

Hitler is astonished. The Americans have landed in great
force, leaving Germany's underbelly exposed.

Between the Soviet defense of Stalingrad and the American
landing in North Africa, the German high command begins to entertain the notion
their crazed, genocidal war is going to be lost.